"By my troth, it is strange to hear my native tongue in these parts, and so fairly spoken withal. I trust we are not bewitched, or the sport of spirits. Who art thou, brave boy? and whence comest thou? How comes it that thou, being, as it seems, a native of these parts, speakest so well a strange language?"
"It was our mother's tongue," answered Gaston, speaking nevertheless guardedly, for he had been warned by the Father not to be too ready to tell his name and parentage to all the world. "We are bound for Bordeaux, and thence to England, to seek our mother's kindred, as she bid us ere she died."
"If that be so, then let us join forces and travel on together," said he whom they had thus succoured, a man well mounted on a fine horse, and with a mounted servant beside him, so that the brothers took him for a person of quality, which indeed he was, as they were soon to learn. "There is safety in numbers, and especially so in these inhospitable forest tracks, where so many perils beset the traveller. I have lost my other stout fellows in the windings of the wood, and it were safer to travel four than two. Riding is slow work in this gloom. I trow ye will have no trouble in keeping pace with our good chargers."
The hardy Gascon boys certainly found no difficulty about that. Gaston walked beside the bridle rein of the master, whilst Raymond chatted amicably to the man, whose broad Scotch accent puzzled him a little, and led in time to stories of Border warfare, and to the tale of Bannockburn, told from a Scotchman's point of view; to all of which the boy listened with eager interest. As for Gaston, he was hearing of the King's Court, the gay tourneys, the gallant feats of arms at home and abroad which characterized the reign of the Third Edward. The lad drank in every item of intelligence, asking such pertinent questions, and appearing so well informed upon many points, that his interlocutor was increasingly surprised, and at last asked him roundly of his name and kindred.
Now the priest had warned the boys at starting not to speak with too much freedom to strangers of their private affairs, and had counselled them very decidedly not to lay claim at starting to the name of De Brocas, and thus draw attention to themselves at the outset. There was great laxity in the matter of names in ages when penmanship was a recondite art, and even in the documents of the period a name so well known as that of De Brocas was written Broc and Brook, Brocaz and Brocazt, and half-a-dozen more ways as well. Wherefore it mattered the less what the lads called themselves, and they had agreed that Broc, without the De before it, would be the best and safest patronymic for them in the present.
"We are twin brothers, may it please you, fair sir; English on our mother's side, though our father was a Gascon. Our father was much in England likewise, and, as we hear, held some office about the Court, though of its exact nature we know not. Both our parents died many long years since; but we have never ceased to speak the tongue of England, and to dream of one day going thither. Our names are Gaston and Raymond Broc, and we are going forth at last in search of the adventures which men say in these warlike days may be found by young and old, by rich and poor. Our faces are set towards England. What may befall us there kind Fortune only knows."
Something in the frank and noble bearing of the lad seemed to please the knightly stranger. He laid a friendly hand on Gaston's shoulder as the youth paced with springy strides beside him.
"I trow thou art a mettlesome knave, and I owe thee and thy brother something more than fair words for the service ye have rendered me this night. I have lost three or four of my followers by disease and accident since I left the shores of England. Boy, what sayest thou to taking service with me for a while -- thou and thy brother likewise -- and journeying to fair England as two of my young esquires? I like you well, and in these days it is no small thing to rank in one's train those to whom the language of Gascony is familiar. I trow ye be able to speak the French tongue likewise, since ye be so ready with our foreign English?"
"Ay, we can both speak and understand it," answered Gaston, whose cheeks had crimsoned with eager delight; "but we speak English better. Good Sir, we could desire nothing better than to follow you to the world's end; but we have not been trained to the use of arms, nor to knightly exercises. I know not if we could make shift to please you, be our service never so faithful."
"In such a case as that, sure I should be a hard master to please," returned the other, and Gaston knew from his voice that he was smiling. "But we need not settle it all out here in this dark wood. You must wait awhile to see what manner of man it is you speak of serving. And you may at least be my companions of voyage across the sea, though once on English shores you shall please yourselves whether or not you serve me farther. As for my name, it is James Audley, and I am one of the King's knights. I am now bound for Windsor -- thou hast doubtless heard of Windsor, the mighty fortress where the King holds his Court many a time and oft. Well, it hath pleased his Majesty of late to strive to bring back those days of chivalry of which our bards sing and of which we hear from ancient legend -- days that seem to be fast slipping away, and which it grieves our most excellent King to see die out in his time. Hast heard, boy, of the great King Arthur of whom men wrote and sung in days gone by? Has his fame reached as far as thy Gascon home?"